Do you eat the buggy ones?

[Earthmom]

Hi all! I collected a little over 6lbs of chants yesterday and left almost as much behind because of bug holes. I know a chef who doesn't mind them at all and just says he soaks them in salt water and they get scrubbed. When I cut my buggy ones up, I see all the little tunnels but I don't usually, hardly ever actually, see the "worm" associated with the tunnel so does that mean it's probably gone now? I know I've eaten them this way before but regardless, I still get the yucks. What is everyone's experience with this? Thoughts? Cleaning techniques for "wormy" (they're basically maggots of a sort) chants?

[robebabu]

I don't eat them if they are too infested. I haven't really seen the larvae either.

What I do is rinse them, soak in water in the fridge... then clean, rinse and rub with fingers before cooking.

What I want to know is, how much of the mushroom do you all use? I pretty much just save the caps, and throw the rest back into the woods.

[cisco]

I've never found chanterelles to be really maggoty. They rarely violate the "more mushroom than maggot" rule. I don't worry about a few tunnels.

The king boletes on the other hand can turn into a mushy sponge in no time. I don't worry about a few tunnels in them either, but eggs can continue hatching and maggots growing on your kitchen counter. They can turn from a solid mushroom into a soft mess quite quickly.

[mushin]

I don't eat the ones that are riddled with worm holes. But I would guess that anyone who has eaten wild mushrooms has eaten more than a few larva. That being said, even packaged and processed food from a store probably has WAY more undesirable things in it than you care to know about. (Ever have a box of cereal get "buggy?" The bugs didn't enter through the sealed plastic liner - the eggs were in the grain and hatched out in the bag.)

When I pick chants I squeeze the stem before I cut it - if it feels hollow it's going to LOADED with worms so I leave it. If I find just a few bug holes after I pick a chant, I'll keep it and trim them out if I suspect that the holes are "occupied." (Cut the stem in half and make a "V" cut to remove the tunnels.) A few unoccupied bug holes in a mushroom don't bother me, and I don't take the time to trim them out.

As to picking wet chants or soaking them to clean them, while it could be that the worms leave when the chants get soaked, it's impossible to see if they're wormy because the tunnels fill with water and it's very difficult to see the tiny black headed white worms. A quick brushing and a light rinse to clean the outside gets them clean and you don't have as much water to cook off when you saute them.

Robebabu: The stems are as good as the caps. With small ones I cut the stem off and leave it whole or cut it in half - whichever will be easier to saute. With large ones I cut the stem off at the base of the cap and then cut the stem into "coins" that are about the same thickness as the cap so that they'll both cook at the same rate.